Quotes from Justin Vernon

There's a few times in the past when I wrote a song, and I put the words together, and they were very clear pictures, and I felt like I was putting together a really good story. But I don't think I was ever really able to stay on that. What I've sort of developed lyrically is more about the sound of the vocals and what they are.

Those old Appalachian singers use a falsetto sometimes. They can change their voices to sound high or low or really scratchy. When you're singing, usually you're trying to express some kind of pain or joy. I think that voice allows me to do a lot more of that.

I'm barely at home enough to enjoy the simple lifestyle that I want to live.

I don't want to get myself in trouble - and I don't think I'm super important or anything - but I think it's so funny that when you look at the business and the way that people make decisions in their lives, whether they're in art or music or they're in industry, they forget that being unique is the answer.

The whole point of being happy is not feeling like you have a job. I'm sure there are days where you're at your job and you're like, "Oh my god, this is hard."

There were a bunch of moments that kept cascading. Like, when we got an opportunity to play "Letterman", it gave us an opportunity to step up. It feels good to shed that skin and rise out of it.

It just didn't seem to fit the story and lineage, I guess. So I just sort of surrounded 'Blood Bank' with three other songs that were very different from one other, and they all kind of came together as a palette cleanser for the last record. And I'm really excited about it.

I can pour myself into Bon Iver. It's a thing about self- and mental discovery, and those are all important things. But it's not 148-shows-over-a-year-and-a-half important, though. It's a machine, and it's money, and you just get put on this indie rock cart, and it's embarrassing.

I'm a creature of comfort.

I'm really honored that Bon Iver gives me a platform to do whatever I want, but there's only so much time you can spend digging through yourself before you become insular. I'm not in a hurry to go back to that temperature.

Honestly, before I settled on a name for the Bon Iver project in general, Chigliak was in the running for what I was going to name the band.

Our lives feel like these epochs, but really, we are dust in the wind.

Growing up, all I did was write about the fact that I'm from where I'm from. I was a big champion of where I was from and Wisconsin in general, and the Midwest.

I think that's all I want in life, just like peace and be able to make music and like have happiness when it's time off. Spend time with people and family, whatever.

Just in general as a person, not necessarily as a songwriter, being in cities wasn't the right fit. I couldn't escape and be in the woods in 10 minutes if I needed to. I like that in Eau Claire, I can walk to a bar or a coffee shop, and there's city-ish things, but I can also drive and in eight minutes be at my parents' land outside of town.

I'm just happy and proud to be playing music every day. Recognition is really cool, but it can also be kind of scary.

I don't want the big flashing lights and red carpet, like, 'Here comes another Bon Iver album!' I just want it to be my bedroom-y thing. But that'll take a while to figure out.

But in any situation with long love, I don't think it ever goes away fully. You just sort of learn where to keep it.

There's that whole thing that happens in relationships - you can love someone but, as soon as they stop loving you so unconditionally that they stop being themselves, it can be so dangerous.

I kind of miss writing songs the way that I used to write songs, in the sense that I would just sit down, and all these words that told a story would come out. There's one Bon Iver song called 'Blood Bank' that is more representative of an older lineage of songs, which I like and I sort of miss. But it just doesn't happen anymore for me.

I know too many musicians that have to tour on the same 10 songs, and they burn out. They get back to their house, and they have no reason to write new music. They are music'd out.

Even the indie rock world - which is supposed to be about truth and independence from corporate mindfulness or something - is totally subject to the paraphernalia of celebrity.

The reality is, if you're friends with somebody you should be able to be honest with them, and that honesty should be the biggest magnet to truth.

I began realizing that it wasn't important for me to concern myself with the perception of truth.